The Eighth Donkey Story

Estimated Time

40 minutes

Materials/ Resources needed

The story, Blackboard, chalk

Multimedia resources

If the video is available this can be shown as a video

Process

This is a story about how a merchant is unable to count. Narrate the story in your own words to the students.

The gist of the story:

A merchant decides to sell seven of his donkeys. His wife cautions him to tie up the donkeys tightly and count them often on his way to the market. The merchant agrees, climbs on one of them and sets off on his journey. After travelling some distance, he counts the number of donkeys, "One, two, three, four, five, six". Puzzled by the disappearance of one of the donkey, he gets down and recounts, "One, two, three, four, five, six, seven". Happy at the thought that all the seven donkeys are present, he mounts one and continues his journey. Halfway to the market, he repeats the counting exercise and, to his dismay, finds only six again! Climbing down, he recounts and is successful in finding all the seven, safely tied to each other. Just before reaching the market, he checks on this donkeys and is baffled again by this repeating mystery of the disappearance and reappearance of one donkey. Walking beside his animals on the road to the market, he meets a young woman who asks the reason behind him walking instead of riding. The merchant explains his problem. Amused, she exclaims that there are eight donkeys going to the market! The merchant shouts out "Eight donkeys for sale! Eight donkeys for sale!" in the market. A rich man buys all, pointing out that the number of donkey is only seven. On his way back from the market, the merchant thinks about the young woman and sympathizes with her poor counting abilities!!!

Developmental Questions

1. Who counted correctly?
2. Why couldn't the merchant count the 7th donkey when riding
3. Was the young woman knowing to count or not?

Evaluation (Questions for assessment of the child)

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